Grammatical person

In linguistics, grammatical person is the grammatical distinction between deictic references to participant(s) in an event; typically, the distinction is between the speaker (first person), the addressee (second person), and others (third person). A language's set of pronouns is typically defined by grammatical person. First person includes the speaker (English: I, we), second person is the person or people spoken to (English: thou or you ), and third person includes all that are not listed above (English: he, she, it, they).[1] It also frequently affects verbs and sometimes nouns or possessive relationships.

Related classifications

Number

In Indo-European languages, first-, second-, and third-person pronouns are typically also marked for singular and plural forms, and sometimes dual form as well (grammatical number).

Inclusive/exclusive distinction

Some other languages use different classifying systems, especially in the plural pronouns. One frequently found difference not present in most Indo-European languages is a contrast between inclusive and exclusive "we": a distinction of first-person plural pronouns between including or excluding the addressee.[2]

Honorifics

Many languages express person with different morphemes in order to distinguish degrees of formality and informality. A simple honorific system common among European languages is the T–V distinction. Some other languages have much more elaborate systems of formality that go well beyond the T–V distinction, and use many different pronouns and verb forms that express the speaker's relationship with the people they are addressing. Many Malayo-Polynesian languages, such as Javanese and Balinese, are well known for their complex systems of honorifics; Japanese,[3] Korean,[4] and Chinese also have similar systems to a lesser extent.

Effect on verbs

In many languages, the verb takes a form dependent on the person of the subject and whether it is singular or plural. In English, this happens with the verb to be as follows:

I am (first-person singular)
you are/thou art (second-person singular)
he, she, one, it is (third-person singular)
we are (first-person plural)
you are/ye are (second-person plural)
they are (third-person plural, and third-person singular)

Other verbs in English take the suffix -s to mark the present tense third person singular, excluding singular 'they'.

In many languages, such as French, the verb in any given tense takes a different suffix for any of the various combinations of person and number of the subject.

Additional persons

The grammar of some languages divide the semantic space into more than three persons. The extra categories may be termed fourth person, fifth person, etc. Such terms are not absolute but can refer depending on context to any of several phenomena.

Some Algonquian languages and Salishan languages divide the category of third person into two parts: proximate for a more topical third person, and obviative for a less topical third person.[5] The obviative is sometimes called the fourth person. In this manner, Hindi and Bangla may also categorize pronouns in the fourth, and with the latter a fifth person.

The term fourth person is also sometimes used for the category of indefinite or generic referents, which work like one in English phrases such as "one should be prepared" or people in people say that..., when the grammar treats them differently from ordinary third-person forms. The so-called "zero person"[6][7] in Finnish and related languages, in addition to passive voice may serve to leave the subject-referent open. Zero person subjects are sometimes translated as "one", although in tone it is similar to English's generic you "Ei saa koskettaa" ("Not allowed to touch", "You should not touch").

English personal pronouns in the nominative case

Pronoun	Person and number	Gender
Standard
I	First-person singular
we	First-person plural
you	Second-person singular or second-person plural
he	Third-person masculine singular	masculine
she	Third-person feminine singular	feminine
it	Third-person neuter (and inanimate) singular	neuter
they	Third-person plural or gender-neutral singular	epicene
Dialectal
me	First-person singular, dialectal Caribbean English and colloquial special uses
thee	Second-person singular, literary, dialectal Yorkshire, and occasional use by Quakers
allyuh	Second-person plural, many English-based creole languages, dialectal Caribbean English
unu	Second-person plural, many English-based creole languages, dialectal Caribbean English
y'all	Second-person plural, dialectal Southern American, Texan English, and African-American English
ye	Second-person plural, dialectal Hiberno-English and Newfoundland English
yinz	Second-person plural, Scots, dialectal Scottish English, Pittsburgh English
you guys	Second-person plural, dialectal American English and Canadian English
you(r) lot	Second-person plural, dialectal British English
youse	Second-person plural, Australian English, many urban American dialects like New York City English and Chicago English, as well as Ottawa Valley English. Sporadic usage in some British English dialects, such as Mancunian.
yourse	Second-person plural, Scots, dialect Central Scottish Lowlands, Scouse, Cumbrian, Tyneside, Hiberno English.
us	First-person plural subject, as in, us guys are going...
them	Third-person plural subject, as in, them girls drove...
Archaic
thou	Second-person singular informal subject
ye	Second-person plural

References

Hattum, Ton van (2006). "First, Second, Third Person: Grammatical Person". Ton van Hattum.
Filimonova, Elena (2005). Clusivity: Typology and Case Studies of Inclusive-exclusive Distinction. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-2974-8.
Itoh, Keiko (2016). "Japanese Honorifics". My Shanghai, 1942-1946. Amsterdam University Press. pp. x–xi. doi:10.1515/9781898823414-003. ISBN 978-1-898823-41-4. JSTOR j.ctt1s17nnj.5.
Byon, Andrew Sangpil (2000). "Teaching Korean honorifics". The Korean Language in America. 5: 275–289. JSTOR 42922325.
Harrigan, Atticus G.; Schmirler, Katherine; Arppe, Antti; Antonsen, Lene; Trosterud, Trond; Wolvengrey, Arok (November 2017). "Learning from the computational modelling of Plains Cree verbs". Morphology. 27 (4): 565–598. doi:10.1007/s11525-017-9315-x. S2CID 10649070.
Laitinen, Lea (2006). "Zero person in Finnish: A grammatical resource for construing human reference". Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 277: 209–231. doi:10.1075/cilt.277.15lai.
Leinonen, Marja (January 1983). "Generic zero subjects in Finnish and Russian". Scando-Slavica. 29 (1): 143–161. doi:10.1080/00806768308600841.

External links

de Gaynesford, Robert Maximillian (2006). I: The Meaning of the First Person Term. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kibort, Anna (2008), "person", Grammatical Features Inventory, doi:10.15126/SMG.18/1.03

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[1] Hattum, Ton van (2006). "First, Second, Third Person: Grammatical Person". Ton van Hattum.

[2] Filimonova, Elena (2005). Clusivity: Typology and Case Studies of Inclusive-exclusive Distinction. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 978-90-272-2974-8.

[3] Itoh, Keiko (2016). "Japanese Honorifics". My Shanghai, 1942-1946. Amsterdam University Press. pp. x–xi. doi:10.1515/9781898823414-003. ISBN 978-1-898823-41-4. JSTOR j.ctt1s17nnj.5.

[4] Byon, Andrew Sangpil (2000). "Teaching Korean honorifics". The Korean Language in America. 5: 275–289. JSTOR 42922325.

[Harrigan-5] Harrigan, Atticus G.; Schmirler, Katherine; Arppe, Antti; Antonsen, Lene; Trosterud, Trond; Wolvengrey, Arok (November 2017). "Learning from the computational modelling of Plains Cree verbs". Morphology. 27 (4): 565–598. doi:10.1007/s11525-017-9315-x. S2CID 10649070.

[Laitinen-6] Laitinen, Lea (2006). "Zero person in Finnish: A grammatical resource for construing human reference". Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. 277: 209–231. doi:10.1075/cilt.277.15lai.

[Leinonen-7] Leinonen, Marja (January 1983). "Generic zero subjects in Finnish and Russian". Scando-Slavica. 29 (1): 143–161. doi:10.1080/00806768308600841.